Alberta Brown
Alberta Brown is known in the Newtown community for her sumptuous southern-style Sunday throw downs – a big roast seasoned to the bone, a large pot of collards, long pans of buttery yams, melt in your mouth mac-n-cheese and moist cornbread with crispy edges.
It is as if a small army of people are dinner guests. Extended family members, church friends and drop-ins are part of the platoon stopping in for a plate. Brown’s family members were sharecroppers from Alachua County. They moved to Palmetto and found work picking tomatoes and green beans. Brown later worked as a live-in on Siesta Key for a physician’s family. She took care of the couple’s little girl. When help was no longer needed, she followed in her sister’s footsteps, training to become a cook. The position at her next job evolved into more. Jane Bancroft Cook, heir to the Dow Jones & Company family enterprise was looking for a cook. Through a recommendation from a previous employer, Cook met a tall, soft-spoken woman and hired her on the spot. Brown recalls the interview that day. “She looked at me and said, ‘oh, you’re beautiful.’” What followed was a friendship with Cook until her death in 2002 and a lifelong kinship with the family that remains today.
